Burritt Sabin is a Yokohama-based author. He was born in New York City and came to Japan as a naval officer in 1975. His professional career in Japan started as a journalist, and he quickly moved into writing and historical research. The first book we’re going to talk about today is about Yokohama, a city known for being one of the first Japanese ports to open to foreign trade in the 1850s. A Historical Guide to Yokohama: Sketches of the Twice-Risen Phoenix is a window into a time when Japan was rapidly opening up to the world.
The other book we’ll talk about is Kamakura: A Contemplative Guidewhich highlights the first samurai capital in the 12th century. Shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo chose this city for the seat of his military government, which ushered in the Kamakura Period in 1185.
Subjects covered in the podcast:
1. Townsend Harris and the opening of Japan (Yokohama)
2. The Hotel New Grand in Yokohama
3. The Great Buddha of Kamakura
4. Natsume Soseki’s and Suzuki Daisetz’s sojourn at Kigen-in, Kamakura
5. The Kamakura bunshi
Lastly, Sabin discusses his three favorite books on Japan.
“Here are three books that gave me pleasure and helped me write my own:”
1. The Death of Old Yokohama in the Earthquake of 1923 by Otis Manchester Poole
A gripping account in real time of a man navigating the post-quake hellscape in an attempt to reach his family.
2. Aru Shisei no To: Koshikata wa kanashiku mono kiroku (A Waif of the Streets: Record of a Sad Passage) by Hasegawa Shin
Hasegawa Shin recounts growing up in poverty in late-19th century Yokohama, teaching himself to read and write, and becoming a leading popular playwright.
3. Sugao Kamakura (The True Face of Kamakura) ed. by Osaragi Jiro
An insightful collection of essays on Kamakura by writers who have made the city their home.
Autumn in Japan is traditionally a time for reading, with cooler evenings and sumptuous seasonal foods apt to put one in the mood for enjoying a good book.
Mystery writer and Agatha Award nominee, Tina deBellegarde, has a seasonal offering that is both timely and ripe for the reading.
Hot on the heels of her first two Batavia-on-Hudson Mystery books comes Autumn Embers, a fresh tale of intrigue driven once more by the savvy, small-town sleuth, Bianca St. Denis. This time, leaving behind a cast of quirky local characters, she departs New York State for Japan’s former capital, Kyoto, to return a priceless artefact and visit her musician son, Ian, who has taken up residency in one of the atmospheric old neighbourhoods.
But whilst we experience the city’s timeless charm through her ‘fresh eyes’ (and faux pas), it becomes quickly apparent that all is not well in the ancient capital.
Tension is ratcheted up when St. Denis’ joy at seeing her son turns to dread after she witnesses a violent struggle in the garden of his guesthouse late one night. When the police find no evidence of foul play, she grows unsettled, convinced that something sinister has come to pass, but helpless in a city where she doesn’t speak the language and is still grappling with its idiosyncratic customs. Her worst fears are confirmed when a body appears in the local river — to be followed by the shocking revelation that her son, Ian, is the number one suspect in the police investigation. Her maternal instincts kick in and she resolves to hunt down the perpetrator.
Like all rollicking mysteries, Autumn Embers deals in the physical as well as the psychological. Between moments of tension, deBellegarde eases us through the quaint shopping streets of downtown Kyoto, sampling its treats, sifting for books and records in its hundred-year-old stores, or just stepping out of a passing rain shower and into a cozy cafe to savour jazz music over a stormy brew.
Scenes like these imbue the story with a strong sense of place and cleverly temper the moments of chaos. Aside from themes of ‘familial love’, ‘friendship’ and ‘revenge’, we come to understand what it means to be a foreigner living in Japan, and that no matter how sincere and earnest one’s endeavours are to fit in and understand the culture, one is forever doomed to remain a gaijin — an outsider.
Autumn Embers moves at a fair clip thanks to the use of short chapters which to-and-fro the narrative between Japan and the U.S. where a parallel story of trial and tribulation is played out by St. Denis’ friend and cohort, Batavia-on-Hudson sheriff Mike Riley. The twain, thankfully, do converge by the end of the book, bringing this story to a satisfying conclusion while also leaving us wondering if there may be more to their relationship than meets the eye.
deBellegarde’s next book, number four, is sure to reveal all.
Our guest today is author Lesley Downer an expert on Japanese culture and history. She writes both fiction and non-fiction. Her novels transport readers to the intriguing world of 19th-century Japan, while her non-fiction takes us along on the Narrow Road to the Deep North with poet Matsuo Basho; behind the scenes of the Geisha community; and into the intrigues of the richest family in Japan. Oh, and she also writes fiction! Today, she discusses her just-released The Shortest History of Japan: From Mythical Origins to Pop Culture Powerhouse, which provides a concise yet detailed account of Japanese history.
Show Notes:
Downer highlights the significance of historical figures like Himiko, the shaman queen who unified Yamatai, and Empresses Suiko and Koken, who ruled Japan in their own right. She also touches on the feminist movement in Japan, particularly the contributions of Hiratsuka Raicho and Akiko Yosano. Lastly, she shares insights into her writing career, including her transition from nonfiction to fiction and her research on geisha.
Lesley mentions Yosano Akiko’s poem “Until Death Do Us Part” (“Shini tanoma”) which Akiko wrote before her brother went off to war:
Until Death Do Us Part
by Yosano Akiko
Though my body dies,
My soul will remain with you.
Until the end of time,
Let us pledge to be together,
Until death do us part.
(translation: ChatGPT 4o)
Downer’s three favorite books on Japan:
1. Japan Journal, 1855-1861 by Henry Heusken, which covers the author’s experiences during his time as the secretary and interpreter for Townsend Harris, the first U.S. Consul General to Japan.
3. Taiko by Yoshikawa Eiji, a historical novel that tells the story of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of Japan’s greatest warlords and unifiers during the Sengoku period.
You can visit Lesley Downer at the following links:
Mayumi Inaba (稲葉 真弓, 1950-2014) was a Japanese writer and poet whom I confess I had never heard of. I am glad I didn’t let that stop me reading Mornings with My Cat Mii. Published in Japanese in 1999 and now translated into English by Ginny Tapley Takemori, it had me gripped.
Inaba finds Mii as an abandoned new-born. She and her husband adopt the kitten, give her a name (onomatopoeic) and watch as Mii grows and explores their garden and its plants, their smells and colours and the neighbourhood noises. Inaba does not seem to be an experienced cat-owner at this point: Mii is impregnated by a stray tom and nearly dies because she is still only a half-grown kitten, too small to give birth. However, she survives and thrives:
“Mii was by now settled in the house and familiar with the woods. She enjoyed playing with the stray cats and came in and out as she pleased. Just hearing the wails of the cats in the grounds of the shrine or the sound of them crawling through the hole in the lean-to by the bathroom and running about the house was enough to bring a smile to my lips. The physiology and instincts of these lively, young and supple, utterly uninhibited creatures enriched my nights. Mii was as cowardly as ever among the Kokubunji cats that did as they pleased, but still she went outside. And she would quietly leave the house as though gauging that it was time for me to work.”
Inaba separates from her husband and, after some considerable difficulty, she and Mii move into a flat. (Who knew that most city flats and houses in Japan refuse to accept pets?) Mii gets used to high-rise apartment living though she has no sense of which flat is hers, and in one distressing episode gets lost and ends up at a neighbour’s for the night – a neighbour who then becomes a close friend to Inaba.
Through difficult times (Inaba also gets sacked from her job), a constant in her life is Mii. Inaba says many other things about her relationship with Mii, and it seems invidious to select one short quote, but I was particularly struck by this description:
“Since my husband had left, Mii and I had become closer than ever. Our intimacy was spun without words and in time formed into an unbreakable bond. We slept in the same bed, entrusting our bodies to each other, snuggling together, and in the morning the first thing we saw was each other.”
And (this from the wordsmith and a poet):
“Maybe the fact that we couldn’t communicate in words cushioned us and kept things calm between us. ”
Inevitably, years of decline follow as Mii ages, suffers various ailments, and eventually dies. Much of this part of the book is taken up with getting food into her and getting the waste products out by massaging Mii’s belly, all described in unsparing detail. Inaba cares for her so devotedly that after the vet has more or less given up, Inaba succeeds in keeping her alive and content to the great age of more than twenty.
Mornings With My Cat Mii is engrossing because it is also about Inaba’s own life, her friendships, the failure of her marriage and subsequent loneliness, her dedication to becoming a writer and her feelings about the physical environment she and Mii share. I reflected, as I read, on the different ways people write about their relationships with animals and reveal themselves as they do so. Gavin Maxwell and his relationship with the otters in Ring of Bright Water came to mind. There is the same acceptance of the loved animal as ‘other’. Mii to Inaba is always a cat, not a human, but that does not in any way diminish the depth of Inaba’s feelings for her cat (or Maxwell’s for his otters).
I was also reminded of a Chinese novella, The Tabby-cat’s Tale by Han Dong, which I translated myself (Bridge21 Publications, 2025). In both stories, the cat is a sort of nexus in the narrator’s web of human relationships. The down-to-earth descriptions of appalling fleas, body processes and the infirmities of (feline) old age are also common to both authors. Are we in the west more squeamish? Perhaps. The difference between Mornings With My Cat Mii and The Tabby-cat’s Tale is in the raw emotions, or lack of them, of the author. Han Dong’s take on the tabby-cat in question is respectful but detached, while Inaba’s attachment, and her grief when Mii dies, are unmistakable.
Finally, I found Ginny Tapley Takemori’s translation pleasing and convincing. As a translator myself, I have a particular comment to make, on a point that interests me very much: the way Tapley Takemori keeps Japanese words in the text, without explanation or italics, and mostly without glosses. For instance, in one line, she describes a room as having tatami and a tokonoma. Most non-Japanese speakers would know that tatami is a kind of mat, but a tokonoma? There are two schools of thought about how to deal with words that are specific to the source language and culture: on the one hand, translators can explain or substitute a ‘domesticated’ version; on the other they can leave the words exactly as they are, in the hopes that the reader will do their own research. Tapley Takemori here has opted for the latter, the make-the-reader-work approach. I was intrigued because this is a decision I have to make, for or against, with almost everything I translate from Chinese. Furthermore, leaving foreign words in a translated text is a road less travelled by translators.
However, nowadays it is very easy to track down a word by searching online and so, in a matter of seconds, I found that a tokonoma is ‘a recessed space in a Japanese-style reception room, in which items for artistic appreciation are displayed. In English, a tokonoma could be called an alcove.’ (Thank you, Wikipedia). I am convinced! An alcove, alone, just doesn’t do it. A tokonoma does, and I’ve learnt a new word.
Mornings With My Cat Mii is beautiful (irrespective of one’s feelings towards cats) because Inaba is writing about love, the sort of love one could equally have for a human companion, about her pleasure in Mii’s company and ultimately, about grief. I read it in one sitting, and will likely go back and read it again. I thoroughly recommend it.
Amy Chavez talks with Robert Whiting about his recently released book Gangsters, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders who Shaped Modern Japan (Tuttle, April, 2024).
In this episode of the Books on Asia podcast, host Amy Chavez talks to author John Stevens about his latest book The Lotus Moon: Art and Poetry of Buddhist Nun Otagaki Rengetsu (Floating World Editions, Aug. 2023).
Book’s Features:
The most comprehensive English-language presentation of the work of famed nun and artist Ōtagaki Rengetsu (1791-1875)
• Presents 90 of Rengetsu’s painting and pottery works in over 242 full-color photos
• Written by Professor John Stevens, the foremost Western authority on Rengetsu
• Includes Japanese kana, romanization, and English translations, with commentary for all entries
• Provides an intimate portrait of the life and work of one of the most remarkable women in Japanese culture
• Offers insights into significant thematic and cultural concerns of 19th-century Japanese art
Author and travel-writer Angus Waycott talks about his book Sado: Island of Exile based on his 8-day walk around the island off Niigata Prefecture in the Japan Sea. He gives us in-depth accounts of: a mujina (tanuki-worshipping) cult, funa-ema (literally “ship horse pictures”), exile (including those of Zeami and Buddhist priest Nichiren), and the controversy behind the Kinzan gold mine and its “slave labor,” all topics which he recorded in his book Sado: Japan’s Isand of Exile originally published by Stone Bridge Press in 1996, and re-issued as an e-book by the author 2012, and 2023.
Book Description: “Given the choice, no-one ever went to Sado. For more than a thousand years, this island in the Sea of Japan was a place of exile for the deposed, disgraced or just plain distrusted — ex-emperors, aristocrats, poets, priests and convicted criminals alike. This book rediscovers the exiles’ island, explores the truth about its notorious gold mine, tracks down a vanishing badger cult, and drops in on the home of super-drummer band Kodo. Along the way, it paints a vivid picture of one of Japan’s most intriguing backwaters, now emerging from a long exile of its own.”
Publisher Peter Goodman and author/translator Frederik Schodt talk about artificial intelligence as it relates to writing and publishing books.
Schodt’s book Astroboy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution was recently listed as one of the books used to train generative AI. Peter Goodman is publisher of Stone Bridge Press (our podcast sponsor), and released Schodt’s Astroboy Essays in 2007. Both of these guests are going to give us their views on AI, the use of published books to train artificial intelligence, the issues of copyright, fair use and plagiarism, and what the AI industry should be doing to move forward and make the advancements beneficial for everyone involved.
If you’re an author and would like to find out if your book was one of 183,000 used to train AI, see this article in The Atlantic:
The search engine The Atlantic devised to use to see if particular titles were used to train generative AI.
With Mami Suzuki: Private Eye, Simon Rowe delivers a delightful twist on the traditional private investigator (PI) novel. This charming new sleuth is a middle-aged single mother from Kobe who sleuths in her off-hours to help cover the household expenses for herself, her mother and her young daughter. Suzuki is no Miss Marple. Fashionable but frugal, professional and low-key, she struggles to make ends meet, and often turns to a beer or a whiskey to ease her burden.
Rowe’s book is an attractive blend of the modern and the classic, much like Japan itself. He takes us on a tour from bustling Kobe to the languid islands of Ishigaki in southernmost Okinawa, and even to a “cat island” in the Seto Inland Sea.
The novel unfolds as four separate cases and stand-alone stories with several threads that connect the narratives. For instance, Teizo, a handsome fisherman and former submariner, plays Watson to Suzuki’s Sherlock. Each new client is recommended by the last, and sometimes, there is significant overlapping.
We begin in the port city of Kobe, where Suzuki lives. Here, Rowe shows us both sides of the tracks—the luxury of the pearl district, as well as the pubs and karaoke bars. You may recognize this part of the book from the author’s earlier collection Pearl City: Stories from Japan and Elsewhere where Suzuki is hired by a pearl dealer to suss out a thief.
The chapter “Land of the Gods” contrasts with the hustle and bustle of urban Kobe when Suzuki goes to Shimane Prefecture on Japan’s western seaboard to find a missing sushi chef. The sleuth must discover whether the chef left of his own accord or if something more nefarious occurred.
The episode “Sounds of the Tide” takes place on the idyllic island of Ishigaki where Suzuki investigates a drowning. The victim’s sister suspects the wife and her family had a hand in it. “Sounds of the Tide” becomes particularly compelling when Suzuki develops a friendship with the widow and is unsure if the relationship has clouded her judgement.
Rowe continually presents us with new angles to age-old stories. The final story, “Isle of Cats” features a pregnant college student and a runaway novice priest. The latter finally leads Suzuki to a near-deserted cat island before the twist ending is revealed.
Many PI novels are black and white, good versus bad, but Suzuki executes a more nuanced approach. She works on instinct:
“…intuition guiding her, not knowing exactly what would transpire or what awaited around the next corner but resolute in her belief that if you fell down seven times, you got up eight. There was never any certainty with cases like these, only hunches based on loose facts which, when arranged, pointed in a general direction. ( p.186)
These are not fast-paced action plots, but rather slow-burning character studies. The mysteries originate with people and real-life problems. They conclude quietly, as do many Japanese narratives, with the characters adjusting to the new normal. The prose is crisp and atmospheric. Rowe manages to imbue his stories with details and local color without obscuring the writing. Each case takes us to a different seaside locale and leaves us with the whiff of a salty breeze.
Mami Suzuki captured my heart when I first met her in the author’s Pearl City collection. I had hoped to see more of her, and Simon Rowe has delivered in spades. To my delight, the book left me with a satisfying ending and the promise of a sequel. What more could I want?
